Assembly Concurrent Resolution 77 declares May 2025 to be Drowning Awareness and Prevention Month in California and recognizes Nadina Riggsbee and her children in honor of her retirement as President and Founder of the Drowning Prevention Foundation. The text recites state and nonprofit data about drowning risks and notes the seasonal concentration of incidents between May and August.
The measure is ceremonial: it makes official findings and a proclamation, recognizes an individual, and directs the Assembly Chief Clerk to distribute copies. The resolution contains no appropriation, no regulatory directives, and no new enforcement powers—its practical effect is to increase visibility for prevention organizations and provide a legislative imprimatur that stakeholders can cite in outreach and partnership efforts.
At a Glance
What It Does
The resolution proclaims May 2025 as Drowning Awareness and Prevention Month in California, lists factual findings about drowning incidence and consequences, and formally recognizes Nadina Riggsbee and her children for her work with the Drowning Prevention Foundation. It also instructs the Chief Clerk to transmit copies of the resolution to the author for distribution.
Who It Affects
The text is most immediately relevant to public health agencies, drowning-prevention nonprofits, child-safety advocates, and local governments that run pools and swim programs—entities that may use the proclamation for outreach. It imposes no duties on private actors or state agencies and includes no funding authorization.
Why It Matters
Even without legal force, the resolution concentrates legislative attention on a leading cause of childhood death and creates an official reference point for public information campaigns, fundraising appeals, and interagency coordination timed to the high-risk May–August season. For advocates and local officials, the proclamation is a low-friction tool to justify prevention activity and public messaging.
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What This Bill Actually Does
ACR 77 is a straightforward concurrent resolution: it opens with a series of "whereas" clauses that summarize drowning statistics provided by the Drowning Prevention Foundation and the California Department of Public Health’s EPICenter, then resolves that May 2025 be observed as Drowning Awareness and Prevention Month. The resolution also includes a formal recognition of Nadina Riggsbee, naming her and her children and noting her three decades of work in drowning prevention.
It ends with a ministerial instruction to the Chief Clerk to distribute copies of the measure.
Procedurally, the document is chaptered and filed with the Secretary of State and carries a legislative counsel digest and a fiscal committee note indicating no fiscal effect. Because it is a concurrent resolution rather than a statute, it does not amend the California Codes, create enforceable obligations, or appropriate funds.
Instead, its primary mechanism is symbolic: a public declaration by both houses that elevates the issue on the legislative record.That symbolic mechanism matters in practical ways. Public health departments, nonprofits, and local officials can point to the resolution when timing media campaigns, applying for external grants, or coordinating community education around pools and open water during the summer months.
The resolution does not centralize coordination or require agencies to act, so any follow-through depends on existing actors choosing to use the proclamation as a lever for outreach or partnership.
The Five Things You Need to Know
ACR 77 (Chapter 142) formally proclaims May 2025 as Drowning Awareness and Prevention Month in California.
The resolution recites statistics from the Drowning Prevention Foundation and the State Department of Public Health’s EPICenter, including that drowning is the leading cause of death for ages 1–4 and that two-thirds of incidents occur between May and August.
The measure specifically recognizes Nadina Riggsbee, her daughter Samira, and her son JJ for Ms. Riggsbee’s retirement and more than 30 years of work in drowning prevention.
The legislative counsel notes and fiscal digest indicate no fiscal committee referral and no state expenditure or appropriation created by the resolution.
The resolution is ceremonial and ministerial: it contains no regulatory commands, no statutory changes, and only directs the Chief Clerk of the Assembly to transmit copies for distribution.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Findings and evidence cited to justify the proclamation
This section lists the factual findings the Legislature relies on: fatal and nonfatal drowning incidence, age-group rankings (notably ages 1–4), the silent nature of many drowning incidents, survivor outcomes including neurological injury, and the seasonal concentration of incidents. For practitioners, these clauses reveal the data sources and the specific risk factors the Legislature intends to highlight—useful when aligning outreach messages to the resolution’s language.
Official designation of May 2025 as Drowning Awareness and Prevention Month
This operative clause is the core act: an official, nonbinding proclamation that the month of May 2025 be observed for drowning awareness in California. Legally this is a declaratory statement rather than an enactment of policy; its practical utility lies in signaling legislative priorities and giving stakeholders an authoritative reference to cite in campaigns or grant applications.
Honorary acknowledgment of a nonprofit leader
The resolution names and recognizes Nadina Riggsbee and her children, noting her retirement and long tenure as founder and president of the Drowning Prevention Foundation. That recognition confers public acknowledgement on a specific advocate and organization, which can enhance credibility for the foundation’s future partnerships and fundraising, but it creates no institutional role or entitlement for the honoree.
Ministerial closure and public record
The final clause directs the Chief Clerk of the Assembly to transmit copies of the resolution to the author for appropriate distribution. The document is filed with the Secretary of State and chaptered as Chapter 142. These procedural steps make the resolution part of the legislative record and available for stakeholders to cite, reproduce, and distribute.
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Who Benefits
- Drowning Prevention Foundation and similar nonprofits — The formal recognition raises profile, credibility, and a public record that advocates can cite in outreach and fundraising.
- Public health departments and child-safety coalitions — The proclamation supplies a legislative hook for timed campaigns, education efforts, and partnership pitches during the high-risk May–August period.
- Families with young children and caregivers — While the resolution imposes no programmatic changes, it aims to increase public awareness of drowning risks and prevention practices that directly concern households with pools or access to open water.
- Local governments and parks/recreation departments — Officials can leverage the state observance to justify swim-safety programming, community events, and local messaging to constituents.
Who Bears the Cost
- No new state agencies or regulated entities face statutory costs under the resolution itself; however, public information activity may prompt local agencies to reallocate existing outreach budgets toward drowning-prevention messaging during May–August.
- Nonprofits and volunteer organizations may face increased expectations to deliver events or materials without additional funding, creating operational strain if demand grows.
- Legislative and administrative staff time and printing/distribution costs to circulate the resolution are minimal but nonzero; those costs are absorbed within existing budgets rather than funded by the measure.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is visibility versus capacity: the resolution effectively raises public and legislative attention to a clear public-health risk at low fiscal cost, but without earmarked funding, designated implementing agencies, or performance metrics, it risks increasing expectations for action while leaving the hard work of prevention to already-stretched local agencies and nonprofits.
The most important limit on this resolution is its purely ceremonial nature: it creates visibility without funding, performance standards, or centralized coordination. That frees the Legislature from budgetary commitments but also limits the resolution’s capacity to produce measurable reductions in drowning without follow-on programs.
For practitioners, the key implementation question is whether public agencies and nonprofits will convert the proclamation into funded, evidence-based prevention activities or whether the resolution will remain symbolic.
Another tension concerns data and accountability. The resolution cites specific statistics from named sources, but it does not identify timelines, metrics, or responsible entities for measuring progress.
That makes the proclamation useful for awareness but weak as an accountability tool. Finally, honoring an individual confers reputational benefits to one nonprofit leader but raises questions about equitable recognition of other organizations doing similar work; the resolution resolves that choice in favor of one honoree without creating processes for broader stakeholder inclusion.
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